Brexit means the green movement could go somewhere nasty on immigration. Here is why it shouldn’t

Brexit means the green movement could go somewhere nasty on immigration. Here is why it shouldn’t

Alex Randall

Alex is coordinator of the Climate and Migration Coalition – a network of refugee and migration rights organisations working together on climate-linked migration. His work focuses on international policy and advocacy on the rights of people who move due to climate change impacts.

After Brexit, green organisations will inevitably do some soul searching. Most green groups backed the Remain campaign. Most of the big green organisations pointed to everything the EU has done for the environment. Others pointed to joint European action on climate change. But clearly many people found green appeals about EU membership unmoving. England and Wales voted conclusively for Brexit. Green groups will now be asking themselves why they were out of step with the wider public.

This is not an uncommon place for green and climate change organisations to be. Climate change is frequently an issue at the bottom of the public’s list of concerns. For the green movement to be asking questions about why it hasn’t galvanised public support is a regular event.

My fear is that in an attempt to appear more relevant, green organisations will go somewhere nasty on immigration. This is an appeal to green organisations to do the opposite.

The Spanish coastguard intercepts a traditional fishing boat carrying African migrants off the island of Tenerife in the Canaries.

Immigration became the defining issue of leave campaign. As the refugee situation in the Mediterranean escalated, photographs of people entering Europe became key tools of the leave campaign.

“We have found that our climatic measures significantly influence migration flows. In particular, black and low-income migrants tend to be more strongly affected by climate in their migration decisions than their white and high-income counterparts.”

Immigration was the defining issue of the Brexit campaign. It was consistently the issue Leave voters said motivated them the most. It might seem odd to suggest that green organisations would reach for immigration as an issue at the moment. But I think this is a genuine risk.

Green organisations in the UK have struggled to engage people outside a narrow demographic. Green NGOs have been good at galvanising support among educated urban people and higher earners. They’ve often struggled to engage anyone else. Greens are often lumped into “the metropolitan elite,” accused of ignoring the concerns of the majority and promoting lofty and irrelevant ideals. During the Port Talbot steel crisis, UKIP picked its villains carefully. The culprits – they argued – were climate change legislation and the EU. Both – they claimed – the domain of detached urban elites.

Any organisation that has found itself on the losing side will now be wondering what to do next. Green and climate organisations will be too. How can they shake off the reputation of being part of the dreaded “political class”? How can they prove their green agenda is in tune with the concerns of the majority? Some will turn to immigration. Popularity – they hope – might lie in tapping escalating anti immigration feeling.

Green groups will not need to invent new “environmental” anti-migrant arguments. They have already been well rehearsed.

The steel works in Port Talbot

During the Port Talbot steel crisis, UKIP picked its villains carefully. The culprits – they argued – were climate change legislation and the EU. Both – they claimed – the domain of detached urban elites.

The steel works in Port Talbot

During the Port Talbot steel crisis, UKIP picked its villains carefully. The culprits – they argued – were climate change legislation and the EU. Both – they claimed – the domain of detached urban elites.

Green immigration arguments

Green groups will not need to invent new “environmental” anti-migrant arguments. They have already been well rehearsed. Some green organisations have flirted with anti-immigration messaging over the years. The arguments are not new.

Green groups sometime claim immigration creates new pressure on the environment. More people means more houses, roads, infrastructure and energy. All this puts pressure on nature and landscapes. It also means people moving from low emitting poorer countries, and adopting high emitting lifestyles. Some green groups have argued that restricting immigration is good for the environment.

Another common argument is that climate change will create mass migration. Sea level rise, drought and famine will create new waves of migration. Millions of people will head for the UK. Some green groups hope to make a case for action on climate change, by stoking fear about immigration.

In an attempt to reach beyond their current audiences, some green organisations may deploy these arguments. They have in the past. My fear is that given the circumstances, they are now likely to do it again.

Green groups sometime claim immigration creates new pressure on the environment. More people means more houses, roads, infrastructure and energy. All this puts pressure on nature and landscapes. It also means people moving from low emitting poorer countries, and adopting high emitting lifestyles. Some green groups have argued that restricting immigration is good for the environment.

But the arguments are deeply flawed. No organisation can credibly make them.

Migrants tend to have low carbon footprints. Low wages leave little room for the high spending lifestyles that produce high emissions.

Climate change will re-shape patterns of migration. But it is likely to produce short distance internal migration. People are less likely to cross international borders.

The Brexit vote was fuelled by anti-migration feeling. But this fear was misplaced. Millions have legitimate grievances about unemployment, reduced health services and lack of housing. But these fears about jobs, health and housing were all wrongly laid at the door of immigration.

Green organisations have always had coherent proposals that address concerns about jobs, health and housing. It was green organisations that raised concerns about the link between the environment and public health. And climate organisations that proposed creating new, well paid work through renewable energy.

Climate change and green organisations must stick with these proposals. And must steer well clear of the flawed and unethical arguments about immigration.

3 Comments

Ilham Kocache
on July 6, 2016 at 9:36 pm

Alex, thanks for the very logical presentation of the problems associated with immigration and how it has been approached. I think, here at CIWARS, we have been closely looking at the issues of climate change, migration, and conflict. First, we agree that true climate change migration will be very short distances. However, the way we see it developing this will be a very small percentage of overall migration. As we have written before, governance is really the issue. All of that said, the lack of governance combined with food insecurity will put an estimated 40 million people in motion in the next 14 years.

Look at it today. People are fleeing Zimbabwe as Mugabe fades. There is open and violent opposition to Mugabe that is violent and effective. They are fleeing to South Africa which is also a governance mess with daily violent protests some estimate at 30 a day and a splintering ANC. Food insecurity played a role in the instability but it was the lack of governance that delivered the final blow. Even if the migration was a short distance it may not be in the best interest of the migrants to step into another conflict in South Africa. The same goes of the Horn of Africa.

It is our belief that the present systems of classification by different issues is not going to meet our future needs: the crush will be too large. After all, if we are going to be really honest much of international humanitarian law is dead. The world has failed to enforce the Genocide convention in Cambodia, Rwanda,Darfur, and now in the Levant with ISIS even though everyone says it is genocide. There is no action. Human rights law with migrants is not meeting our needs and does not even address climate migrants. The law of war is dead after the world has turned its back on the atrocities in Yemen and Syria. (I don’t think I am brave enough to include Palestine in this stew) Lets all be honest that maybe a new order needs to be developed.

In stead, i think the world is faced with two options: focus on containment in the home countries by assisting with governance and development, which we need to find a new approach to accomplish, or simply accept the redistribution of populations as the new norm.
I tend to favor a combination of both , but if we look at history and the great migration to the USA in the late 1800’s to 1920’s it meets the latter model. The world accepted that it was appropriate to have a mass migration.

In the end, I think accepting mass migration and organizing it would make more sense than our current broken system. The truth is that many countries would benefit from a mass migration as they drop below zero growth.

Would our money be better spent on education and preparation for migration so they are productive in their new homes, than wasting away in interment camps. Would the migrants’ money be better spent on adjusting to their new homes than feeding illegal smugglers who usually also in involved in human sex trafficking and drugs.

Just questions. What I do know that the old system is not prepared for what is about ready to happen. If half of the projections are correct, we are standing at the gates of hell.

It would be more polite to wait until greens actually make anti-immigration arguments (if they ever do..) before casting aspersions.

The appeal of green politics is simple: rational humanism. Climate change and greater equality are the two great, global challenges of our age.

There is a deep moral sense behind ideas of equality. It’s unthinkable that greens would jump on an anti-immigration bandwagon to gain votes or sign up to policies based on narrow-minded prejudices which treat anybody unfairly.

I think there are a few key examples of green / climate campaigners making anti-immigration arguments in the past – which is why it was worth writing the article now. The link in the article is to comments by Jonathan Porritt – an influential green campaigners – making the case for a net-zero immigration policy on the grounds that more migration would mean more damage to the environment. You can also find similar arguments being made by Green Party candidate Rupert Reed. E.g. here: http://bit.ly/1oArT26 Also organisations like Population Matters consistently campaign for tighter controls on immigration – very often with reference to impacts on eco systems and landscapes in the UK. For these reasons we felt it was important to publish this article to make a strong case for green groups not to go down this route.